The Hill has a sexism problem. What are we doing about it?

Change is painful. Change means uprooting assumptions, breaking apart misinformation and digging up buried truths. It’s a process of destruction and rebuilding — and while it’s happening, there’s a lot of vulnerability.

Right now, our Parliament sits — uncomfortably — in that most vulnerable place. First, the allegations of sexual assault against Jian Ghomeshi went public. Then, as more and more women came forward with their own stories of abuse at the hands of the CBC personality, the silence about harassment at another august institution began to crumble as well.

A former intern with a Liberal MP’s office shared a story of persistent sexual harassment by her supervisor. She told of being humiliated, of being subjected to unwanted sexual touching — and of being ignored when she tried to bring the issue to the attention of the Liberal party and her MP.

Then Chantal Hébert, a veteran of Canadian political reporting, recounted her own experiences in the hostile work environment of Parliament. She described a workplace where women were openly treated as sexual objects, and where harassment of parliamentary pages by the MPs and senators they served was an open secret.

The next bombshell dropped when Justin Trudeau announced that Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, both Liberal MPs, were being suspended from caucus following allegations of personal misconduct made by two members of the NDP caucus.

Political commentator and former political staffer Ian Capstick told his own story of sexual harassment and unwanted sexual touching by two MPs during his time on the Hill. Deputy NDP Leader Megan Leslie described Parliament as being a place from “another decade” when it comes to gender — with women MPs continuing to face lewd comments and unwanted touching from their male colleagues in the House. NDP MP Sylvain Chicoine has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that he was sexist towards former staffer Fabiola Ferro, failed to deal with harassment when Ferro brought it to his attention, and ultimately fired Ferro without cause.

At this point, it’s become almost impossible to keep up with the allegations as they emerge. It seems as though nearly every woman who has worked the Hill has a story about being harassed, assaulted or discriminated against by male colleagues.

By now, whatever illusions Canadians had about the illustrious nature of Parliament have fallen apart. I know I’m not the only one who has been heartbroken to hear, in such stark terms, how unwelcome a place Parliament continues to be for people who aren’t straight white men.

Victims shouldn’t have to whisper to each other about who gets handsy after a few too many drinks, or who can’t be trusted in an empty elevator. They shouldn’t have to suffer private humiliations in closed-door meetings — or the public humiliation of sexist heckles on the floor of the House.

This flood of allegations should mark a turning point in Canadian politics. Our system of government is supposedly a representative democracy – but a system in which more than half the population is implicitly unwelcome in the seat of power is not representative. This is an opportunity to make changes for the better, but it’s not yet clear that our elected leaders will take that opportunity and run with it.

Some people have stumbled already. Justice Minister Peter MacKay, speaking about the allegations of harassment on Friday, said that he hadn’t “seen anything like this, quite frankly, within our party, let alone Parliament.”

All sarcasm aside, it was a tone-deaf moment from a minister who has already stepped in sexist muck this year. If Mr. MacKay hasn’t seen any of the harassment that his colleagues say is rife in Parliament, he hasn’t been paying attention.

Worse than the mistakes of one individual minister was the revelation that, in the very recent past, the Conservative government had the opportunity to address sexual harassment in Parliament head-on – and didn’t.

In 2012, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, meeting in Québec City, adopted a Plan of Action for Gender-Sensitive Parliaments. The plan was specific and action-oriented, with clear steps governments were advised to take to ensure their Parliaments were equitable spaces – but our government didn’t implement it.

Then, nine months ago, a Commons committee dealt with the issue of harassment in Parliament again. The committee called on Parliament and Status of Women Canada to work together to raise awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace. The government politely declined.

Now Parliament is scrambling to come up with a process to resolve allegations of harassment between MPs, while harassment allegations between MPs and their staff are handled through a patchwork of different systems. Rather than developing a thoughtful, fair and transparent process, we’ll end up with something that will be the best we could do under pressure.

The news out of Ottawa isn’t all bad. While the sheer number of allegations of on-the-job harassment is overwhelming, there’s comfort to be had in the fact that people finally feel safe enough to come forward. There’s safety – and solidarity – in numbers.

But victims of harassment shouldn’t have had to protect themselves in secret for so long. They shouldn’t have to whisper to each other about who gets handsy after a few too many drinks, or who can’t be trusted in an empty elevator. They shouldn’t have to suffer private humiliations in closed-door meetings — or the public humiliation of sexist heckles on the floor of the House. They shouldn’t have to worry about whether the people they work with every day are predators.

The brave people who have come forward to tell their stories have taken the first steps to make change happen. They’ve opened our eyes to a culture of bigotry and discrimination that has been hiding in plain sight on Parliament Hill for too long. Now, it’s time for our elected representatives to end that culture of workplace harassment — and make sure that Parliament is a place that truly represents all Canadians.

Devon Black is studying law at the University of Victoria. In addition to writing for iPolitics, Devon has worked for the Canadian International Development Agency, Leadership Africa USA and RamRais & Partners.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.